QRIS users exceed credit cards, Airlangga calls many ‘operators’ fatigue
JAKARTA – Coordinating Minister for the Economy Airlangga Hartarto said that the use of the QRIS (Quick Response Code Indonesian Standard) payment system continues to increase rapidly. In fact, the number of QRIS users now exceeds the use of credit cards in Indonesia.
Airlangga considered that this development has sparked anxiety from “operators” in the industry. Even so, he did not specifically explain who the operator meant. He said that QRIS had exceeded the use of credit cards, so various parties began to feel worried.
“QRIS seems to overtake the use of credit cards, that’s why various operators are getting tired of seeing how we can move quickly and the number of QRIS users is already 56 million,” said Airlangga at the 1-year event of the Prabowo-Gibran administration in Jakarta, Thursday (16/10/2025).
Based on statistical data on the payment system and financial market infrastructure (SPIP) of Bank Indonesia, the volume of credit card transactions in the fourth month of this year reached 40.67 million transactions. Meanwhile, the number of credit cards was recorded at 18.68 million as of April 2025.
Airlangga explained that the authorities continue to strive to strengthen the economy and the rupiah exchange rate. To support this, Indonesia cooperates with a number of other countries so that QRIS can be used in Malaysia, Thailand, Japan, China, Korea, and the United Arab Emirates.
So we have a resilience [ketahanan]. So don’t worry, in the digital field, we lose, we in digital are very good at it,” he claimed.
Furthermore, Airlangga said that the value of Indonesia’s digital economy reached US$150 billion. According to him, the rapid development of the digital economy in Indonesia also encouraged the logistics and warehouse business to grow 8% or above economic growth (5.12% in the second quarter of 2025).
Previously, the United States (US) government had highlighted the implementation of QRIS and the National Payment Gate (GPN). They think the payment system is more or less detrimental to the US. The spotlight is listed in the National Trade Estimate (NTE) Report on Foreign Trade Barriers 2025, which was published in late March or days before US President Donald Trump announced reciprocal tariffs.
The NTE document shows that US companies, including payment providers and banks, expressed concern that during the process of making Bank Indonesia Regulation No. 21/2019 which stipulates QRIS for all payments using the QR code in Indonesia.
The document states that international stakeholders are not informed about the nature of the potential change or are given the opportunity to explain their views on such a system, including how the system can be designed to interact with the existing payment system.
Meanwhile, in May 2023, BI mandated that government credit cards be processed through the GPN and require the use and issuance of local government credit cards.
“US payment companies are worried that this new policy will restrict access to the use of US electronic payment options,” the NTE document wrote.
